image credit | Derek Owens

Season 3, Episode 1: Coping with “Unnatural Disasters”

Panu and Thomas offered listeners advice with how to cope with the new class of “unnatural disasters” that have beset the globe in past weeks and months—horrific damage from wildfires that are supercharged or that arise in places we don’t expect them, coping with simultaneous earthquakes and hurricanes—in Greece, Canada, Los Angeles, Lahaina and beyond. Thomas explained key differences in how varied types of disasters are experienced and understood. He reflected on how the loss of a treasured place like Lahaina touches both Hawaiian natives and the many visitors who have had special life experiences there (with echoes of New Orleans and the Katrina disaster). Panu shared insights from his research and the recognition that coping calls for “skills in grief,” and when appropriate, “skills in joy.” Thomas introduced the concept of “disaster subcultures”: recognizing how groups see and react to the same disasters quite differently, for example, government officials, professional first responders, and the general public—and the resulting “disaster diversity” we need to respect. What are the pros and cons of concepts like “Polycrisis” for our coping? Either as a technical description of simultaneous catastrophic events or a blanket term for a sense of global breakdown? Join us and share your thoughts. 

Links

• Elizabeth Kolbert on “Unnatural Disasters”  (2023, Aug 20, The New Yorker): 

“After visiting the wreckage of Lahaina, Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, called the Maui fires the “largest natural disaster Hawaii has ever experienced.” In fact, the fires would more accurately be labeled an ‘unnatural disaster.’ As David Beilman, a professor of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, recently pointed out, for most of Hawaii’s history fire simply wasn’t part of the islands’ ecology. “This Maui situation is an Anthropocene phenomenon,” he told USA Today.” (2023, Aug 20, The New Yorker) 

• Ville Lähde on “Polycrisis” (2023, Aeon)

“There is ‘a’ polycrisis and ‘the’ polycrisis. That is, on the one hand, people are trying to find a clear working definition of a polycrisis, to define its key characteristics, in order to forge a research concept with which to examine a diverse range of concatenations of events . . . On the other hand, ‘polycrisis’ is understood not as a common noun but as a proper noun, denoting this particular stage of world history. There is only one polycrisis: this historical epoch, when humanity has created a world interconnected and interdependent to an unprecedented degree, combining vast material wealth with radical inequality and teetering on the threshold of ecological collapse.”

Transcript

[The Climate Change and Happiness Transcript is on holiday.]